40FP(20): Numbers 12

(NLT translation, which is my favourite at the moment)
1 While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because he had married a Cushite woman.
2 They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lord heard them.
3 (Now Moses was very humble — more humble than any other person on earth.)
4 So immediately the Lord called to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam and said, “Go out to the Tabernacle, all three of you!” So the three of them went to the Tabernacle.
5 Then the Lord descended in the pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam!” he called, and they stepped forward.
6 And the Lord said to them, “Now listen to what I say:
“If there were prophets among you,
I, the Lord, would reveal myself in visions.
I would speak to them in dreams.
7 But not with my servant Moses.
Of all my house, he is the one I trust.
8 I speak to him face to face,
clearly, and not in riddles!
He sees the Lord as he is.
So why were you not afraid
to criticize my servant Moses?”
9 The Lord was very angry with them, and he departed.
10 As the cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, there stood Miriam, her skin as white as snow from leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened to her,
11 he cried out to Moses, “Oh, my master! Please don’t punish us for this sin we have so foolishly committed.
12 Don’t let her be like a stillborn baby, already decayed at birth.”
13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “O God, I beg you, please heal her!”
14 But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had done nothing more than spit in her face, wouldn’t she be defiled for seven days? So keep her outside the camp for seven days, and after that she may be accepted back.”
15 So Miriam was kept outside the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back before they traveled again.
16 Then they left Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Why is this a favourite passage?
There is much worth pondering in this passage. A few thoughts:
1) Like many in authority, Moses arouses resentment in those around him. It is as if Miriam and Aaron (brother and sister to Moses, remember) resent the admission into Moses’ inner circle of someone new. This is rivalrous desire.
2) Unlike most people, Moses does not play their game – he is genuinely humble – but the Lord then acts on his behalf. Moses does not assert himself – the Lord defends Moses from what his relatives are doing. Something of a theme with Moses (‘you have only to stand and watch…’)
3) Moses intercedes for his sister – there is no anger on display. Moses doesn’t try to stand in God’s place of judgement.
4) The people wait for Miriam.

I just find this a very human vignette, and a story which says a great deal about Moses’ character.

TBTE20100306


The current “health care reform” farce is a case in point; most of the plans being discussed in Congress just now deal with the fact that half the American people can’t afford health insurance by forcing them to buy it anyway under penalty of law, funnelling tens of billions of dollars out of the pockets of struggling families – in the midst of a recession, no less – into the coffers of a health insurance industry that is already one of the most overfunded and corrupt institutions in American public life.

Separation horizontally and vertically (ordination)

Justin Martyr (presumably not _the_ JM) asked me to expand on my comments about ordination.

One point at issue is whether ordination confers any sort of spiritual superiority compared to other Christians, to which the fairly uncontentious answer is No. However, there are things which the church does which do confer that spiritual superiority (superiority is a bad word for this, but I can’t fathom a better one just now).

I am thinking of baptism. Baptism grafts a person onto the Body of Christ and equips them for ministry. The community of the church is a community set apart, consecrated, a royal priesthood. The church functions for the world in the way that the Levitical priesthood functioned for the people of Israel. They are called to be holy.

Ordination to the priesthood neither requires nor enables any greater degree of holiness on the part of the minister, compared to what is expected of any baptised believer. What it does do is mark out a person for the exercise of a particular role; it also prays for the guidance and blessing of the Holy Spirit to be with them as they exercise that role (this could be rendered in ‘ontological’ language but doesn’t have to be). So someone who is ordained is not called to be more holy than someone who is baptised.

The separation is not vertical (more or less holiness) but horizontal (a different part of the body).